California's Big Debate

English Spoken Here?

LOS ANGELES—The linguistic remnants of the imperial armadas of Great Britain and Spain are sailing into a new battle on California’s November ballot. A state constitutional amendment declaring English the official language of California is up for a vote. If it passes, Spanish will presumably never make it to co-equal status. And a legal minefield will be laid in the path of programs for bilingual education and bilingual ballots.

Opinion polls show Proposition 63 leading by a country mile — 70-22 per cent in a recent Los Angeles Times survey. Even 54 per cent of Hispanics are reported to favor it. Out of sync are the politicians opposing Proposition 63, including Republican Gov. George Deukmejian and his Democratic challenger, Mayor Tom Bradley of Los Angeles. A cynical explanation for their stance is the fear of losing the support of Latino oranizations, who oppose Proposition 63.

If the amendment is approved in bellwether California, skirmishes over language could escalate nationwide, especially in such heavy-immigration states at Texas and Florida. Political momentum might also gather for stripping the federal Voting Rights Act of its provisions for bilingual ballots.

The drive for English is led by a Washington-based group called U.S. English. Half of its 205,000 members live in California.

Most vigorously opposed are Hispanic organizations, who charge that the real goal is to suppress the Spanish language and culture and that the amendment is discriminatory, xenophobic, un-American. “The amendment would relegate immigrants to second-class citizenship,” said John D. Trasvina of the Los Angeles-based Mexican-American Legal Defense and Education Fund.

The xenophobia charge is preposterous, said California English campaign chairman Stanley Diamond. “All languages and cultures are precious to our American heritage,” he asserted; all ought to be celebrated in homes, churches, synagogues, ethnic festivals. The amendment would tamper with none of that, he said. It would do nothing to restrict the use of Spanish, Chinese, Korean or any other language in signs, stores, even in special editions of the yellow pages.

Opponents charge that Proposition 63 would strip non-English speakers of such essentials as “911” emergency service, health care and bilingual treatment in courts. Diamond called the allegations “false and unconscionable lies” and pointed to official ballot arguments carefully stipulating that language issues involving public safety, health and justice would be excluded from the law’s requirements.

Where would the impact hit? First and foremost, according to Diamond, in “powerful” constitutional recognition of English’s preeminent role. Next, he said, the amendment would confine bilingual education programs to short-term bridges to full English usage. Finally, it would prevent the state or localities from requiring even more multilingual ballots and voter materials than federal law already requires. Currently, the city of Los Angeles polls voters on whether they’d like ballots in Spanish, Japanese, Chinese, Vietnamese, Korean or Tagalog. Irony of the day: The survey is conducted in English.

Few doubt that Anglo culture is losing its dominance in California. A population survey suggests that by the year 2030, the state will be 38.1 per cent Hispanic and 16.8 per cent Asian.

Is the ballot amendment a last-ditch racist stand as the dominant English language loses its grasp? In no way, argues U.S. English director Gerda V. Bikales. English isn’t inherently superior, he said. It just happens to be the dominant language of the United States.

Having a common tongue, Bikales continued, “has given Americans a tool and tradition for settling our many differences through discussion and mutual persuasion. We have a complex enough society without adding language problems.” But emotional arguments swirl around Spanish because of the nation’s porous southern border and the influence of Spanish-language radio and television.

The irony and oddity of the California struggle is that thousands of citizens here are resisting making English the official language when, around the world, hundreds of millions are surging toward English as the common denominator of communication.

A stunning new public television series, The Story of English, dramatizes how English has become the global language. More than one billion people, two-fifths of the world’s population, know at least some English. It’s being learned by 250 million Chinese, the equivalent of the entire U.S. population. It’s the exclusive language of air traffic control systems in 157 nations. Eighty per cent of the world’s computer data are in English.

No doubt, English is a vestige of the imperial British past. But today it’s the “link language” among multinational, multicultural groups all over, especially in India and Africa. “If you want to earn your daily bread, the best thing to do is learn English,” President Siaka Stevens of Sierra Leone has said.”That is the source from which most of the jobs come.”

California’s organized Hispanics agree that English is essential to work-world success. But in practice, many young Latinos are learning neither fluent English nor the ways of making it in California’s modern-day economy. Diamond notes that dropout rates for Hispanic youth from California schools range from 45-80 per cent. And that after a generation of government-mandated bilingual education.

As Hispanic numbers swell and Latinos gain political power, the language issue spotlights a quandary apearing across America’s Mexican and Caribbean flank: Will Americans, facing as they do decades of tough new economic and political decisions, be talking to each other, or past each other?



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